


Coming Around Again

by cfcureton



Series: Desperation Club [2]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), olicity - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Green Arrow (Arrow TV 2012), Alternative Universe - No Island, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:47:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22788181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cfcureton/pseuds/cfcureton
Summary: Felicity’s made the life-altering decision to end her marriage and move forward with Oliver. All that’s left is to gather up the pieces of her old life and put them away.Set between chapters 6 and 7 of Desperation Club. The title is Carly Simon’s song by the same name.
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Tommy Merlyn, Nyssa al Ghul/Sara Lance, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak, Ronnie Raymond/Caitlin Snow
Series: Desperation Club [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638280
Comments: 51
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

Felicity wrinkled her nose to fend off the sneeze, but it was no use. The sound, even with her dramatically loud “Achoo!” went nowhere, absorbed under the eaves of the dusty attic. In its wake, this 64th sneeze of the day, she heard the muffled yowl of the cat, sequestered—furious and glaring, probably—in her bedroom lest he climb the fold-down stairs and disappear forever into the nooks and crannies of the attic.

She’d put it off as long as possible, clearing out up here, first because the summer temps made it unbearably hot, then telling herself it didn’t make sense to tackle it until the rest of the house was done. But now the movers were on the calendar, set to arrive in a week to separate and remove the artifacts of Ray Palmer’s life from her own. 

And so the attic could no longer wait.

Oliver has been up here with her earlier in the day, dragging boxes of books from one end of the space to the other at her direction, staging everything by the stairs so the moving men would know exactly what to take. He had the patience of a saint, that man, bent double under the low spots and hauling the personal belongings of her ex-husband without comment or question, doing this for her simply because it was a thing she required. 

She continued to be the luckiest person on the planet. 

What was left, after the books were accounted for and the storage containers of old clothes had been stacked in the hallway below for donation or disposal, were a few odd boxes with now-cryptic scribbles as to their contents. Felicity pulled one closer and wriggled a foot free of her cross-legged position to stretch and ease the pin pricks of a limb gone to sleep.

The box itself was the kind reams of paper came in. One corner of the lid had been nibbled at some point—she thought of the famous rat in the wall and shuddered—but was otherwise intact. She removed the lid and her face melted into a smile; it was filled with the bits and pieces of her college life. 

A packet of letters, bound together with a hair tie, caught her attention first. Felicity filed through the multi colored envelopes and recognized Caitlin and Laurel and Sara’s college handwriting; their summer correspondence in the era before the internet, or cell phones. Somewhere in a shoebox each of them had a similar bundle, she assumed, with a ribbon wrapped around her plain white envelopes and her mother’s Vegas address scribbled in the top left corner. God, those summers waiting tables on the Strip had been grueling; long hours with no natural light and hardly a day off, while Laurel spent her days sunbathing at the home of the two doctors she babysat for and Sara got brown and fit outdoors as a camp counselor. Caitlin always worked retail, but seemed to have reasonable hours just the same. Felicity longed to unwrap the bundle and re-read the summer adventures of twenty five years ago, but if she did the afternoon would be gone before she finished. She set it aside with a sigh. 

Much of the box was filled with papers: play bills, postcards, the half sheets from a dot matrix printer containing her semester schedules and her grades, always straight A’s. But as she lifted them out of the box something else made of paper fluttered down to land on her knee. It was a straw wrapper. She set the other things back and plucked up the wrapper, curious. It was purposefully and carefully flattened, the long ruffled edge still mostly intact, and on one side, in Felicity’s small neat handwriting, it read “Rooftop with Oliver, April 14, 1994.” At once, like being flung through a wormhole, she was reliving the memory.

——————————————

Felicity chewed on the end of her pen and sighed in frustration. It was hard enough to concentrate in this god forsaken frat house without Oliver and Tommy butting in to make jokes and distract everybody. Normally she wouldn’t be caught dead here on a weeknight, but Ronnie had begged Caitlin to come help him study and Caitlin had somehow convinced her to bring her homework and tag along. To his credit, Ronnie was giving it a good effort, but from the sounds moving steadily closer outside his room, distraction was imminent.

Tommy burst through the door first, no warning knock, probably hoping to catch Ronnie and Caitlin making out. It was his favorite hobby. He had a sack of fast food in one hand and a lidded drink in the other. Oliver crowded in behind him. 

“Anybody hungry?” Tommy shouted, always louder than necessary. Ronnie dropped his pencil on his desk and sat back with a grin, clearly happy for the interruption. Felicity rolled her eyes at fate. 

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” she muttered into her textbook. 

“What was that, Smoaky?” Tommy was grinning when she glanced his way.

She almost let it go, but she was feeling snarky. “Virgil. Ever heard of him?”

Tommy’s brow crimped in mock confusion. “Virgin?”

“VirGIL. Virgil. You know what? Never mind.”

Tommy flopped onto Ronnie’s bed, leaving space for Oliver to come all the way into the room. He had his own bag of food, plus a drink carrier with two cups in it. He made himself at home on the futon Felicity was sitting on the floor in front of, settling inches from her knee. His presence always made her catch her breath; she didn’t like him or anything, but she always became more aware of everything—him, her hair, what she was wearing, the expression on her face—when he was in the room. She immediately took the pen out of her mouth. 

Across the room Caitlin was helping herself to some of Tommy’s fries, a temporary truce from their usually combative relationship. Felicity ducked her head back to her book, determined to keep working.

“Hey. You thirsty?” 

Oliver nudged her shoulder gently and leaned forward to get her attention. Felicity tried very hard not to blush. 

“Uh, what?” 

The drink carrier appeared in her peripheral vision. 

“They screwed up my order and gave me a diet, and they let me keep it. You want it?”

Diet soda was not her thing, personally, but she’d grown up on it all the same, so she shrugged acceptance with just a glance his way. “Okay.”

Oliver pulled the drink from the carrier with a squeak of styrofoam and she heard the ice rattle as he handed it to her. She was trying to act like this interaction was normal, but it had only been a few months since the night they met, and sometimes she wasn’t sure he even remembered it. 

“Thanks.” A straw appeared immediately after, but any other hope of conversation was quashed when Tommy addressed his best friend and the three guys started talking about sports. Felicity focused on carefully tearing the end of the straw paper and extracting the straw without damaging it. She took a delicate sip of diet and made a face, then flattened the straw paper carefully with her fingers and nestled it in the crack of the textbook like a bookmark.

Caitlin had apparently given up on work for the moment. She was perched in her boyfriend’s lap still munching Tommy’s fries, and Ronnie had one hand in her hair, absently carding his fingers through her spiral perm. They were so cute it made her want to barf. Or cry. 

“You wanna get out of here?”

Felicity had gone back to pretending to read her chapter on the fall of Rome, but part of her brain thought maybe that question had been directed at her. The nudge against her shoulder confirmed it.

“Uh, what?” It seemed to be all she could say this evening. 

Her gaze glanced off Oliver’s features as if she’d get burned if she let herself look too long. This was hell. She was in hell. Caitlin was no help, not paying any attention at all to the obvious pickle her roommate was in. 

“Follow me. Bring your drink.”

And then she was looking at his knees next to her downcast face. He was standing, waiting for her to follow him...wherever. This. Could. Not. Be. Right. She opened her mouth to explain how he’d made a mistake, because he must have her confused with some other girl, but before she could form the words he was hauling her up gently but steadily by the elbow. Her knees assisted him at the last minute and she shot to her feet so fast she staggered sideways. 

“Um.”

Oliver was already moving, leaving Ronnie’s room without a word to any of their other friends. Felicity threw a look to Caitlin, one last plea for help, but she only shrugged. She certainly didn’t look concerned. 

So that was one of them, at least.

The back of Oliver disappeared out the door and made a left; Felicity advanced far enough out of the room to peek her head around the doorframe and see where he went next. He was shouldering the door to the stairwell open but paused to look back at her and wink.

“Stop worrying, Felicity. I don’t bite.”

She doubted that very much, but sucked in her bottom lip and followed.

The stairwells in this place always smelled funky, like all the maleness and illicit cigarettes and stale beer from the whole house converged there and, just, stayed. It always made her wrinkle her nose. Felicity had to jog down the stairs to keep up with his long, easy strides. He passed one of his fraternity brothers coming up and engaged in some brief, weird handshake—not the secret one, surely, though she wasn’t entirely sure that wasn’t a myth—before pushing through the door to the second floor hall. 

Oliver hadn’t said a word since his promise not to bite and she was afraid he’d forgotten he’d invited her to come along. Her face heated up as she imagined him thinking she’d followed him on her own, a nerdy blonde girl trailing him around the house looking for attention. It was enough to make her want to turn around and run right back up to Caitlin and Ronnie; even Tommy’s teasing seemed bearable compared to Oliver rejecting her now, but before she could reverse course and push back through the door he called out to her.

“Hey Felicity, can you hold this a sec?”

He meant his cup. She started to say “Um” again for the umpteenth time but pressed her lips together instead. They were outside the door to his room but he was turned toward the window, fiddling with the latches and the crank that opened it. 

“It’s kind of a tight squeeze. You ready?”

Oliver took both drinks from her and set them outside the window on the roof to the porch. Then he laced his fingers together into a cup and bent down. “Ladies first,” he said pleasantly.

Felicity just stared. His mouth quirked into a grin.

“C’mon. It’s safe.”

She hesitated a second longer before lifting one foot to place it gingerly in his hands. She steadied herself against the wall and heard him count to three under his breath before giving her a boost. Almost effortlessly her hip was resting on the window ledge.

As an interesting bonus, she and Oliver were now very close and very much eye to eye.

“You aren’t afraid of heights, are you?”

Felicity, mute, shook her head no.

“Okay. Out you go. Careful of the drinks. I’ll be right behind you.”

And then she was scrambling out the window onto the roof for no other reason than Oliver Queen had suggested it. God, she felt ridiculous. What if campus security saw them? What if she slid over the edge and fell into the courtyard and broke her neck? What if this was just a cruel trick and he was going to abandon her on the roof of a frat house to be laughed at? 

She turned back to reach for the window frame just as his head and shoulders squeezed through the opening, freezing her on the spot. He grinned at her as he wriggled forward and twisted so his hips would fit through, then bent his knees and pulled those long legs out as well. 

“Oof. Gonna have to lay off the pizza.” He sounded oddly pleased with himself.

They took a moment to rearrange themselves and collect their drinks. Felicity pulled her knees to her chest and took a nervous sip from her soda.

“There. What do you think? Cool, huh?”

She hiccupped and nodded at the same time and Oliver laughed. It was warm, for April, but the breeze was cool and Felicity shivered in her Clark County Schools Mathlete Champion tee shirt. Of all the clothes she owned, she had to wear the nerd one. She was glad it was dark so he wouldn’t see her blush.

“Sorry, are you cold? Here.” Oliver leaned forward enough to be able to whip his flannel shirt off and then draped it around her shoulders, leaving only a short sleeved tee over his fantastic biceps. Suddenly a shy, nerdy, nothing-freshman girl was sitting on the porch roof of a fraternity house with one of the hottest—not to mention richest—guys at their school, wearing his shirt. Surrounded by his scent. Engulfed in it, really. God, Felicity, get a grip before you swoon.

If he noticed the personal crisis she was having, he was nice enough not to mention it.

They sat in silence for a minute, watching the traffic light on the corner change as cars rolled through the intersection. Finals were next week, and then they’d all be heading their separate ways for the summer. Felicity’s mom already had a job lined up for her. 

“I like it out here,” Oliver said. “It’s quiet.”

As if on cue an angry car horn blared and they both chuckled. He shrugged his shoulders lightly. 

Felicity wasn’t talkative on a good day, but now she was struck dumb, wracking her brain to think of something cute or clever to say. Something to show him she wasn’t just the shy nerd he’d always seen. But he beat her to it.

“You’re pretty shy, aren’t you?”

She took a long draw from her soda to stall. And to figure out if Oliver Queen was a mind reader. A list of standard replies scrolled through her brain at lightning speed, faster than she could process. She could feel him looking at her, waiting to hear what she’d say.

In the end she settled for a shrug. He huffed a laugh in reply, but there was no meanness in it.

“The guys around here can be a lot, I know. Especially Tommy.” His arm was resting on his pulled up knee, giving her a front row seat to his incredible bicep. The Gun Show, Ronnie called it. She sucked down another nervous sip of diet.

“I’d ask you if you’re ready for finals, but you’re always ready for finals,” he continued. 

Felicity looked down at her knees, mute. She was used to getting compliments about her brain, but not from a jock. 

“What else are you good at?”

“What?” Her eyes flew up to search his face, her shyness temporarily forgotten. Oliver offered her a kind smile.

“You probably get tired of being asked questions about how smart you are. Tell me something about you people don’t normally know.”

“I...I can drive a stick.”

“Really?” He blinked in surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t know you could drive.”

The look on his face was so filled with genuine wonder, Felicity felt a smile forming. 

“My mom made me get my license right before I moved out here.” She shrugged. “She has a stick shift, so...”

“I don’t know many girls who can drive a manual. That’s impressive.”

“That’s Smoak women for you.”

Oliver threw back his head and laughed, a genuine, full-bodied guffaw over something she’d said. Her face burned with embarrassment, but also happiness, and since it was dark she could ignore the brilliant shade of red it must be turning and just enjoy the moment.

Behind them, inside the house, a herd a frat boys walked past the open window, shouting and laughing. One of them yelled, “Queen!” in a fake deep voice, and someone else cat called the two of them. Felicity was mortified, but Oliver twisted around and nonchalantly flipped them the bird. They laughed and hooted and moved on.

“Ignore them. They’re harmless.” 

He went quiet and she risked a glance at him.

“Even Tommy,” he said then.

The statement surprised her so much she kept looking at him, even after Oliver’s eyes lifted from the roof to meet hers.

“I know he bothers you, and I’m sorry.”

Felicity shook her head quickly. “He doesn’t—“

“No, I know he does. And he knows it too. He’s just...he’s complicated.”

Felicity shifted to face him, dropping one knee to rest on the shingles and scooching a bit closer. It felt like important things were about to be said.

Oliver sighed. “His mom died when we were kids, and then his dad kinda...checked out. He didn’t have anybody, except me. I think he’s lost, a lotta the time.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Felicity felt like reaching out for him, but she couldn’t make her hand move. Instead, she stared at the spot on his arm she wished she was touching. Oliver finally looked up at her and her focus shifted to lock gazes with him.

“But he likes you. He really does. He’s told me you’re the smartest person he’s ever met. He’s just shit at showing it.”

She chuckled at that, surprised, and his mouth curved into a smile. 

“I like him too.”

Oliver’s smile stayed, and so did the eye contact, and suddenly Felicity wasn’t sure if they were still talking about Tommy. 

“Um...”

A car roared into the parking lot and parked crooked before spilling a horde of fraternity brothers from its interior. Oliver chuckled at the sight and the spell between them was broken. 

“Caitlin’s going to think I kidnapped you,” he said, though he made no move to head back inside. His eyes dropped to rest on the flannel shirt of his she was still wearing.

“Thanks for the drink. And the break.”

He smiled. “Any time, Felicity.”

———————————————————-

Next to her leg, Felicity’s cell phone juttered  
against the floor on vibrate, wrenching her back from the memory. She shook her head quickly to clear it and snatched the phone up to answer.

“Hey you.”

“Hi. Still in the attic?”

She smiled. “Yeah. Found a box of college stuff.”

“Oh yeah? That’s some treasure, I bet. Anything interesting?”

Felicity smoothed the straw paper very carefully through her fingers, remembering the way she’d walked home that night three feet off the ground and very carefully noted the date on the straw paper before she went to bed.

“Do you remember the first night we sat on the roof of the house?” she asked.

There was a short pause on the line. “I do remember that.”

“I saved the straw paper from the soda you gave me.”

“You did?”

“I did.” She huffed a laugh. “I was studying for my World History final by re-reading the entire textbook. God, I was such a nerd. And then you and Tommy burst into the room with food and I was sitting there like a total idiot with my pen in my mouth.”

“It was red.”

He said it so softly she almost asked him to repeat it. 

“Yeah. It was. You remember?”

“Of course I remember. It was you.”

Felicity sat, speechless, in her dusty attic and tried to think of something she could say that would convey how much she loved this man on the other end of the line, but before she could come up with the words his throat cleared in a quiet rumble.

“So, I called to see what you’d like for dinner. I’m about to run to the store.”

“Oh! Um, anything, really.”

“Chicken okay?”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay. I’ll be there shortly.”

“See you.”

“I love you, Felicity Smoak.”

Her smile stretched from ear to ear.

“Ditto, Mr Queen.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chapters in this story are SO fun to write. I get to sob my way through crafting the angsty flashbacks and then make it all better in the present. It’s fantastic. Love you all. Enjoy.

The chime of a text brought Felicity back from daydreaming over her cup of coffee. It was from Caitlin:

When will you be home? I need to come get your donations for the scout rummage sale.

I’m home now. Took the week off to get ready for the movers.

Great! On my way.

Felicity sighed and pushed to her feet; if she was missing work to paw through the attic, she should probably be, well, pawing through the attic. 

She was dragging a plastic tote full of clothes closer to the top of the stairs when a dry cleaning bag of dresses slithered off the top and revealed a large box, decoupaged in giant flowers of pink, mauve, and maroon, underneath. Felicity made a little sound of surprise and immediately ran a hand over its surface. She scooped up the dresses in one hand and the box in the other and headed for the living room.

Their wedding invitation was on top, a white card embossed with roses touched with pink. So very 90s, she thought with a snort. So very her mother. Under that there was a receipt for the flowers, a white cocktail napkin with a swirly, formal capital P stamped on it, and all the other remnants of the Smoak/Palmer wedding.

Near the bottom, making a dusty rattle as she shifted the box’s contents, was a dried flower. It was withered and worn, still attached to whatever green sticky stuff florists used to make it into something you could shove a stick pin through. The feathered greenery had crumbled to dust at the bottom of the box and the rose had shriveled, but it was still a dusky shade of pink. 

Felicity lowered herself to the couch without looking as she plucked the boutonnière from the box.

———————————————

It was Ray’s parents who’d insisted on the church wedding. They were already old when he was born—a last-minute surprise at the end of a string of four mostly-grown children—and now they were positively doddering, but still in control of their faculties enough to insist that their son be married the traditional way.

HER mother’s insistence on a huppah had nearly spoiled everything. 

Felicity let the girls fuss over her, adjusting and readjusting the enormous train with the lace cutouts her mother had assured her was all the rage in the bridal magazines. She herself had stayed away from that nonsense, perfectly happy to let anyone and everyone who wanted plan the details of her wedding. She’d never been the girl who spent hours imagining what she would wear, or what music would be played, or what the groom would look like. There seemed no point in starting all that now.

They’d just been through this with Laurel anyway; she strutted around like a worldly matron, though the ink on her marriage license with Tommy was barely dry. Thank god for Sara, the only one who would push back when her sister got to be too much.

Their little party of girls dressed in mauve satin off the shoulder dresses bundled her out of the church classroom and into the vestibule in a giggling shuffle of dyed-to-match pumps. Sara, Caitlin, Laurel, they were each holding three pink long stemmed roses apiece, tied into a bundle with some green fluff by a white satin ribbon. Caitlin relieved the bride of her heavy cascade of white roses and greenery to give her arms a rest until it was time to open the doors to the sanctuary and get the show on the road. Felicity took a deep breath.

Behind her the front doors opened and closed, briefly letting in the sounds of a busy Saturday afternoon street. She glanced back, expecting to see a harried guest; one of Ray’s many cousins, maybe. 

She did not expect to see Oliver.

Laurel’s tongue worked first. “Ollie! What are you doing out here?! You should be up at the front of the church, with the rest of the guys!”

He looked chagrined, sort of, apologetic at any rate. Laurel clicked rapidly across the marble floor to reach for his arm and get him propelled in the right direction, but at the last second Caitlin’s eyebrows shot up in panic.

“His boutonnière!”

Suddenly the space was a mess of girls in pink dresses dashing around as the organ music transitioned into a stately march. Leave it to Donna Smoak to pick the “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” Processional to accompany her daughter down the aisle.

In the center of the madness, Felicity and Oliver stood facing each other, united by their stillness.

“Are you okay?” she asked softly.

His mouth flicked into a tiny, guilt-ridden smile. “I’m sorry I’m late. Ray’s bachelor party got a little wild.”

Felicity thought about it being 3:30 in the afternoon and forgave him anyway.

“You look...” He dropped his eyes to the floor and shifted his weight. 

“Okay?” 

His gaze lifted to meet hers. “Perfect.”

And then he leaned in, his fingers brushing her satin-draped upper arm, and left the lightest kiss against her cheek.

“I hope you have an amazing life,” he whispered before he pulled away. 

“Oliver...”

But then Caitlin was back, his flower perched on top of the over-the-top bridal bouquet, and Sara was catching it before it fell and fumbling the pin so badly she stabbed herself hard enough to bleed, so Felicity stepped forward, as calm as a four-star general, and pinned it to his lapel herself. She patted the spot under it, near where his heart beat solid and strong, and then he was walking away to sneak in the back and take his place at the end of the line of groomsmen. 

She got a little drunk at the reception that night, though not on purpose. Blame it on the lack of food all day, and the ridiculous amount of times Tommy tapped his glass with a fork to prompt the newlyweds to kiss and then take a drink. Now, as the older guests were drifting away, leaving the party music and the late hour and the open bar to the younger generation, Felicity sat sideways in a chair and swayed gently to the funky tones of Brick House. 

She’d snagged her new husband’s tuxedo jacket at some point to ward off the chill; she swam in it, but rolling the sleeves had helped a bit. The rose pinned to the lapel smelled amazing, and every few minutes she’d turn her head to take a whiff, her eyes closing in ecstasy. The music changed, and her girls began gyrating on the dance floor to the Macarena. Felicity laughed with delight when Tommy and Ronnie jumped into line with them and wiggled drunkenly. 

This was the best party ever.

Her eyes roamed around the room until they landed on Oliver, standing by the bar with a beer in hand. He was watching the dance floor too, but as she continued to stare, his eyes shifted to meet hers. Years of habit made her reach up and check her hair self-consciously, and she thought she saw the corners of his mouth lift in the ghost of a smile. He tipped his bottle in her direction, an acknowledgment, a salute. 

A message just for me, she thought, the edges of her consciousness blurry and soft. 

And then Ray, her new husband, was crouching in front of her with his sweet, earnest smile, asking if he could get her anything. She kissed him, an over exaggerated smooch with no heat, and sent him on his way to continue the party.

The next time she looked at the bar, Oliver was gone. 

Felicity enlisted her friends for one last bridesmaid duty, a trip to the bathroom to wrangle her dress so she could pee, and then they dragged her onto the dance floor for The Chicken Dance. She escaped as soon as possible after that; they were busy doing the Electric Slide and didn’t notice.

The hotel had a courtyard off the reception space; she pushed through the door into the early spring evening thinking she might find Ray, but she found Oliver instead. 

“What are you doing out here alone in the dark?” She didn’t mean for it to be so loud, but she wasn’t fully in control of her volume anymore. 

He crossed the space to her with a soft smile and his hands in his pockets. His coat was gone too, revealing a set of suspenders, which she didn’t think men actually wore anymore. She was almost positive the other guys hadn’t been wearing them today, but maybe it was something only rich people did. A billionaire thing. Some kind of code. She heard him huff a laugh and realized she’d said some of that not-in-her-head. Oops. Despite the fact that she was now a married woman, she felt the urge to slip her fingers under one of the black elastic bands and give it a snap. But that was the alcohol talking. 

“Having fun?” he asked, clearly amused by the state she was in. Felicity gave him a smile she feared was a bit goofy but couldn’t quite control.

“Mmmm. It was a lovely day.”

“It was.”

Her brow knit clumsily, because it didn’t really sound like he meant that, somehow.

“Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

“You alright?”

He stood and looked at her for a long moment while she waited, close enough to have to tip her head back to see him, floating and fuzzy.

“I’m okay,” he finally decided.

“‘Kay. ‘Cause I want you to have a good time. You’re my friend, Oliver, and I want you to be happy.”

“Felicity—“

“Felicity?” Ray’s voice floated to her from the courtyard door, the dance music spilling out with him. “There you are. Some of my family are heading out and want to say goodbye.”

She turned to acknowledge him a little too fast and swayed for just a second, but then Oliver’s hand was under her elbow to steady her, so that was alright. He probably hadn’t noticed, Ray, the fact that she was a little tipsy.

“Coming!” she answered sweetly, flapping a hand at him and calling it a wave. She looked back over her shoulder at the man still holding her elbow—just barely—with his fingers. “My new husband awaits,” she giggled, and he sort of smiled back.

“You got it?” Oliver asked, but she was already bunching the skirt of her wedding dress in her hands and breaking into a teetering jog toward Ray, bubbly and soft and full of optimism.

Married.

—————————————-

Felicity set the boutonnière back into the box when she heard Caitlin’s rap at the front door. 

“We just need to drag the stuff down the stairs,” Felicity said by way of a greeting, “but come see what I found first.” 

She led the way to the living room and the wedding memento box drowning in floral print. Caitlin squealed when she saw it.

“You still have this hideous thing?!”

Felicity laughed. “I do.”

Caitlin groaned prettily and flipped the lid closed to get a better look. “Ugh, my decoupage skills were on point in the 90s, eh? Look at it. It’s like Jessica McClintock barfed.”

“Stop. I love it. Check this out.” 

She flipped the lid back open and they poked through the box together. Felicity picked up the flower by the sticky end and twirled it gently in her fingers.

“I don’t even remember keeping Ray’s boutonnière.”

Caitlin’s brow knit into a little frown. “That’s not Ray’s.”

“Sure it is. I wore his coat around the reception, remember? At the end of the night I took this off as a souvenir.”

“Ray’s rose was white, like your flowers.” She pointed at the dried specimen in Felicity’s hand. “I don’t know who’s coat you were wearing, ‘cause that belonged to one of the groomsmen.”

Felicity stood and frowned as Caitlin wiped her hands and turned for the stairs. 

“You said the stuff’s upstairs?”

———————————————-

Oliver gathered her into his arms as soon as he walked through the door.

“Hi,” he said, low and soft, the voice he only used with her.

“Mmm, I’ve missed you.” She submitted willingly to the onslaught of kisses.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

It was quiet for several minutes as they made out like teenagers at the bottom of the stairs. 

“What do you want for dinner?” he finally murmured, coming up for air.

“I already ordered out, actually. It’s on its way.”

He made a noise of approval and left a kiss on the tip of her nose.

“I found my memory box from the wedding today,” she said with a big sigh, her eyes closed and her face still lifted to his.

“Oh yeah?”

She nodded and extracted enough of herself to snag his hand and lead him to the living room and the box in question. He stood and considered it a moment, flipping the lid up with his fingers to peek at the contents while Felicity watched him.

“You gonna keep it?”

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“No,” he agreed. “You shouldn’t. You had a lot of good times, you and Ray.”

His fingers found the boutonnière and he picked it up idly.

“Huh. I wondered where this got to.”

“This?” She pulled back a bit in surprise. “You think it’s yours?”

Oliver shrugged. “I remember my jacket went missing during the reception. It was at the Front Desk in Lost and Found the next morning, but the flower was gone.”

Felicity’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “That was...did I wear YOUR jacket that night? I always thought it was Ray’s...”

The end of the reception was kind of a blank, now that she thought about it. There was a limo, and an airport hotel, and a not-fun flight to Hawaii the next morning. What became of the groom’s rented tuxedo had never crossed her mind.

Oliver looked down at her, his eyes flicking to the crinkle between her eyes. “God, I got so wasted that night.”

The crinkle got deeper. “I don’t remember you being even a little bit drunk.”

He chuckled at the memory. “Oh, I waited until after the reception. Everybody else went off with their somebody, so I went to my hotel room—alone—and got shitfaced.”

“I never knew.”

He sighed like he was shaking off the feeling of that night. “You were already on your way to your honeymoon. I wallowed in self-pity the rest of the weekend and then ran away to New York City for a month, just bumming around.” The corner of his mouth twitched up. “That’s where I met Helena.”

“God, Oliver...”

“Hey.” He snagged her waist again and pulled her close. “Water under the bridge. I’ve got you now, and I’m never letting go.”

The doorbell rang to announce the arrival of dinner. His eyes lit up.

“Except for maybe...”

“Pizza,” Felicity whispered with a grin.

“Except for maybe pizza.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapters often take weeks to create, but sometimes they take four and a half hours. Brains are weird.
> 
> This chapter will continue to twist the knife in the flashbacks and make it all better in the present. And for those of you who have never lived in a world without cell phones, you will get an idea of what life was like with shared phone lines, back in a time when only doctors and drug dealers carried pagers. 
> 
> Thanks as always for your love and encouragement. Writing fan fic is the best volunteer job I’ve ever had.

Felicity sniffed as delicately as possible and felt Oliver pull her a bit closer.

“I know, honey.”

It was stupid, it really was. They weren’t officially TRYING to have a baby—that seemed irresponsible considering her divorce was still a few weeks from being official—but they weren’t exactly trying to avoid it, either. She’d already been told—because of her ‘advanced’ age—they’d need to start immediately if they hoped to get pregnant naturally, and there was nothing like a little pressure to make sex, well, unsexy. So Oliver had suggested they just love each other like there were no consequences either way and see what happened.

Starting her period that morning had been a bigger blow than she’d anticipated. 

“I’m sorry I’m so mopey,” she sighed, her voice a little rough from crying. He brushed a kiss against her hair.

“Don’t be sorry. It’s okay to be sad.” He let a beat or two of silence pass. “Would you like to call Sara?” She was the only one of their friends who knew they were kinda sorta trying.

“No. I’ll be okay.” She snuggled closer and sniffed again. “Distract me.”

“Oookay.” Oliver leaned forward a bit awkwardly and reached into the paper box of college mementos that had found its way to the living room coffee table. “What do we have here?”

He’d emphasized each word in a way that made Felicity sit up a little and take notice. He lifted out the bundle of letters the girls had written to her during their summers apart.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she hedged, faintly alarmed. “Those might contain some things you’re not meant to see.”

“REALLY. Well, now I have to know.” Oliver grinned wickedly and twisted away when she reached for them.

Felicity huffed in frustration but she was also finally smiling again, so he settled further into the corner of the couch and removed the now-ancient hair tie holding them together with a flourish.

“Let’s see...Caitlin, Sara, Laurel, Caitlin, Caitlin, Caitlin...there’s a lot from Caitlin.”

“She was my best friend, even then. Anyway, Sara was always too busy, and Laurel and I were never that close.” She shifted higher along his side and snuggled a bit deeper under his arm. “Read one.”

“You want me to read one? Like, out loud?” He sounded surprised, but she nodded confirmation. Oliver shrugged and reached behind them to turn on the floor lamp.

“This is one of Sara’s.” He paused and extended his arm in an effort to focus. “Her handwriting is not easy to read.”

“She IS a doctor,” Felicity pointed out.

“True. Okay. ‘Dear Felicity...Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life...’ Is this just a letter full of Prince lyrics?”

“Only every other line. It’s a thing we used to do. Keep reading.”

“Can I just read every other line?”

“Good grief, Oliver. Yes.”

“Okay. ‘Well, so far being a camp counselor doesn’t suck.’”

Felicity snorted. “This must’ve been from early in the summer.”

Oliver smirked and continued. “‘My first group of campers has been pretty good, if you don’t count the little girl who cries every night and the one who shrieks like a banshee every time she sees a spider.’” He mumbled through a couple either illegible or boring sentences, accidentally read another line of lyrics, then picked up the thread further down the page.

“‘In other news...’ Oh, this is better.”

Felicity squirmed closer. “What? What did you find? Read it out loud.”

“Okay, okay.” He cleared his throat dramatically. “‘There’s an all-boys camp a half mile down the shore. Alli, one of our counselors, has secretly met up with one of theirs, and Saturday night a bunch of us are going to sneak down there after midnight and meet up with them on the beach.’” 

Oliver paused to waggle his eyebrows and Felicity planted a palm against his chest with a laugh. “So this is back when she was still into guys,” he mused.

Felicity frowned mildly. “First of all, she’s still into guys. That’s what bisexual means, Oliver.” She rearranged herself to fit back under his arm and sighed. “Second of all, I’m pretty sure she ended up with that girl Alli before the end of the summer.”

“Ooh. I hope that letter’s in here.”

Felicity chuckled and squeezed him once, an encouragement to keep reading, which he did. Before long her thoughts had wandered to other memories of Sara Lance...

October 1994

“I’m just saying, Jeremy is an incredibly underrated song.” 

Tommy snorted. “Pearl Jam has, like, a THOUSAND songs better than Jeremy, but okay.”

Sara, in drunken retaliation, crossed the room to crank the song in question up loud enough to make Felicity—mildly buzzed—cover her ears in pain. Oliver’s big frame immediately appeared in the doorway; he crossed the room in one long stride and reached for the volume.

“Ollie...” 

“The red line is there for a reason, Sara. I’ve already run through my stereo equipment allowance for the year.” He dropped his head to look pointedly at her but seemed to physically relax when she sidled closer and walked her fingers up his chest playfully. 

Felicity blinked owlishly and wondered if she was more than just buzzed. Were they...actually a thing? She and Caitlin had been suspicious the first time they’d all hung out together as the new school year was starting; there had definitely been some interesting looks passing between Sara and Oliver that first night. Like they were sharing a secret. 

Felicity decided to concentrate very hard on picking at the label of her wine cooler instead of watching any more.

They’d only met Sara at the end of the previous school year, when there’d been a rumor that one of the first floor suites in their dorm might be opening up for their sophomore year but they’d need a third roommate to qualify. Laurel, who Caitlin knew from a Psychology class they had together, had suggested they ask her younger sister and the rest was history. 

That get together two months ago in Tommy and Oliver’s room at the frat house had been a memorable night for several reasons, but most notably it had alerted Felicity to the fact that Sara and Oliver obviously weren’t meeting for the first time. Later, Sara would explain she’d met him a few weeks earlier during football camp. Back then, before she decided to switch to Pre Med, Sara had wanted to be an athletic trainer and had moved onto campus three weeks early to be a team manager. Neither Oliver nor Sara ever talked about what might’ve happened during those three weeks, and Felicity sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to ask.

The next time she looked up, both of them had disappeared.

The night wore on. Pearl Jam was replaced by House of Pain, and Felicity turned down multiple offers of fresh drinks. She was only just seventeen; even one drink felt like tempting fate. Besides, she didn’t like it when all of her friends got drunk at the same time, especially the girls. Somebody needed to be the voice of reason, she figured.

Tommy was gone now too, but probably not far. There seemed to be some unspoken agreement about not leaving her unattended for long stretches of time, a policy Felicity couldn’t get either Tommy or Oliver to actually acknowledge. It was both endearing and frustrating.

If she hadn’t been sitting by the phone box she might never have heard it ring. As it was she had to tip her head to confirm that it was the phone and not some background sound on the cd blaring on the stereo. Felicity scanned the room for guidance, but for once she was completely alone. Great.

She let it ring twice more, praying that someone in the room next door might hear it and answer from their side, but when that didn’t happen she reached tentatively for the wooden door and flipped it open slowly. She sucked in a huge breath and blew it out, then picked up the receiver.

“Uh, hello?”

“Oliver?”

Felicity wrinkled her nose and pulled the earpiece away long enough to give it a funny look. No one in a million years could mistake her voice for Oliver Queen’s.

“Uh, no. Sorry. Can I take a message?”

“What? It’s so loud...Can I speak with Oliver, please?”

“Wait. Hold on.” Felicity had yelled it into the receiver and immediately cringed. Talking on the phone was not her favorite thing on a good day, let alone a stranger’s phone with music blaring in the background. What a nightmare. She set the receiver down gingerly and tiptoed across the room to turn the volume down on the stereo. Only one person out in the hall booed in response, so she called it a win.

“Okay, I’m back. Sorry again. What time is it?”

“Who is this?” And then, a little muffled, “Walter, I can’t...”

Felicity gripped the phone tighter and bit her lip at the sudden silence.

“Um, hello?”

“Hello. This is Walter Steele. With whom am I speaking, please?”

The voice was very male and very British. And also very formal. And, under the circumstances, a little bit scary. Felicity swallowed hard, suddenly nauseous.

“This is, um, Felicity. Felicity...Smoak?”

“Miss Smoak, I’m a family friend of Oliver’s, and it is imperative that I speak with him at once. Could you put him on the line, please?”

“He’s um...I’m not sure where he is, but I’ll try to find him.”

“Thank you. Please hurry. I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

She for sure was totally going to be sick.

“Okay. I’ll...I’ll hurry. And I’m sorry.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“For whatever’s happened. I’m very sorry.”

She set the receiver down without waiting to hear what the very polite Englishman might say next and fled the room. 

She found Tommy first, but as he was mostly face down on the floor in the hall she decided asking him for Oliver’s whereabouts wouldn’t get her far. She ducked her head into every open room on their floor before pushing through into the stinky stairwell, fully aware that he could easily be using the stairs on the other side of the building; she could spend the night running in frustrated circles. 

The third floor was a little more foreign to her. She knew a few of the guys, but many were freshmen pledges. Felicity poked her head in every room possible anyway, asking if anyone had seen Oliver recently. She made her way across the building to the other stairwell and pushed through the door to head down to the first floor and, if that didn’t work, the basement. 

As she rounded the landing to the first floor she encountered a knot of guys hanging out nursing cups of beer. None of them seemed interested in giving her room to get past.

“Excuse me,” she mumbled, attempting to sneak by anyway.

“What’s the hurry?” one of them asked with a smirk. Felicity ducked her head and turned sideways to slip between the speaker and his closest companion, but he snagged the waistband of her overalls and tugged her to a halt.

“Whatta we have here? A little mouse?”

His hand slipped between the bib of the overalls and her tee shirt and pulled her closer, making her gasp.

“Hello, mouse,” he murmured. Felicity’s heart hammered in her chest, at war with her already-upset stomach.

“Hey,” another voice chimed in. “You better not, man. I think that’s Queen’s mouse.”

The others laughed and the guy holding her reluctantly loosened his grip on her waist to let her stumble on down the stairs, too busy thinking about that waiting phone call to process what had just happened. She burst through the stairwell door into the lobby and ran straight into Oliver’s chest.

“Hey,” he said immediately, loose and low-key happy. “Easy there, killer.” For a second she could only stare up at him in shock, watching his glazed expression clear a little as he realized she was alone. “Hey,” he said again. “Are you alright?”

Felicity shook her head quickly. “No. I mean yes, I’m fine. But you have a phone call. From your family. It’s an emergency.”

He blinked down at her once, still very close from where she’d run into him, and then looked up over her head at the stairwell door. He brushed past her for the stairs, and at that moment she realized two things at once: he’d been resting both hands on her shoulders during their exchange, and Sara had been standing behind him the whole time. 

It was Sara’s eyes she met as he moved away; her hair was loose and wild and her shirt appeared to be on inside out.

“Um,” Felicity said, intelligently, but Sara’s eyes flicked to the door swinging shut behind Oliver and that got her moving. They scrambled up the stairs together, past the group of frat boys—who were much less interested in being handsy in Oliver Queen’s wake—to the second floor and room 22. 

Oliver was already on the phone, facing away from them but not far enough to hide the frown of worry on his face. Felicity pounced on the stereo volume and cranked it down to almost nothing as Sara closed the door, then they stood together, shoulder to shoulder, waiting. 

“Okay...when did it...Walter, I...”

Felicity wrapped her arms across her stomach, one hundred percent sure she was going to throw up.

The phone conversation continued one sided. Oliver looked up and away as he listened, holding himself very, very still. Felicity felt Sara’s eyes on her but couldn’t reciprocate; the set of his shoulders had her transfixed. 

“Okay,” he said at the end, a whisper forced out from somewhere deep in his gut. Felicity moaned softly and felt Sara shift her weight against her. 

He hung up without saying anything else, but it was several seconds before he turned their way. 

“Ollie?” Sara took an uncertain step toward him and Felicity suddenly wanted to sink into the floor.

“I, uh, I...” Oliver finally made eye contact, looking once at each of them. “My father died.” He looked completely lost. “I have to go.”

The rest of that night would only come back to her in bits and pieces: trying to rouse Tommy to break the news, hovering in the doorway as Sara helped Oliver pack and hating herself for wondering what they were whispering to each other, feeling Sara’s arm creep around her waist and her head rest on her shoulder as they watched Oliver fold himself into a cab at three in the morning and head off to the airport and the private jet waiting to take him home to his family. 

He was away for two weeks, and by the time he got back whatever had been developing between Sara and him was gone. They always had their private looks, to be sure, but their physical relationship was over, of that she was positive. 

Oliver yawned in the middle of his sentence and Felicity realized she’d been so deep into reminiscing, she’d missed everything he’d been saying for...how long? She’d lost track.

“Well,” he said with a sigh, “it is clear to me now that Laurel didn’t need to go to law school to learn how to write like a lawyer. And Caitlin used entirely too many hearts and...” he trailed off and waved the envelope in the air tiredly, “...smiley faces.”

She’d missed two whole letters? Frack. Felicity rubbed soothing circles on his chest and smiled up at him.

“Well thank you for taking my mind off everything.”

Oliver dropped the envelope onto the pile in his lap and tugged her closer. “I’m glad it helped.” 

They sat in companionable silence for a moment.

“Hey,” he said softly, brushing a wayward strand of hair off her forehead with his free hand. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Mmm?”

“Instead of looking for a house to buy together, why don’t we fix this place up?”

Felicity lifted her head to let him see her raised eyebrows. “You mean, like, DIY? Didn’t you learn your lesson from the kitchen wall?”

“Oh, God yes. I didn’t mean US. I meant pay someone reputable to gut the whole place and make it exactly the way we want.”

She rested her chin on the back of her hand as she considered his offer. “That’s an awful lot of mess to live through, Oliver.”

He shrugged. “So we rent a place in the meantime. If we get someone in here right away to design it, I bet it can be finished by the time, well, you know.”

Felicity suddenly couldn’t meet his eye and he squeezed her fiercely for just a second. 

“Felicity, it’s going to happen. We’re going to get our family, and when we do I think both of us would like to raise our kids here, in this house.” His voice dropped to a murmur, his gaze moving between her eyes and her mouth in that way she loved so much. “So let’s fix it up the way we want in the meantime.”

“You really do love me,” she murmured. Oliver’s soft smile of agreement melted her heart.

“More than anything,” he confirmed in a whisper.


End file.
